


past times calling

by freecastle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Triggers, the other m9 are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 13:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freecastle/pseuds/freecastle
Summary: Remembering her childhood isn't the greatest, for Beau. Least of all when remembering is preceded by not-insignificant blood loss in the middle of the night.





	past times calling

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so if I made any mistakes in that regard, feel free to point them out. Hope you enjoy!

These days, bandits on the road tend to be more a nuisance than any real danger. They’ve relied on Yasha’s forceful personality and Caleb’s alarm spell to keep them safe for weeks now, taking less care to put up a consistent watch around the campfire while the majority of the Nein slept.

While Beau usually appreciates the extra hours of shut-eye, right now, as she just barely catches a crossbow bolt out of the air before it pierces her shoulder, the thought enters her mind that there might have been questionable decision-making involved.

Twisting, she sends the bolt back to its source and feels a burst of satisfaction as the impact is signalled by a sharp cry. Behind her, she hears Caleb shouting, and then a rush of heat washes over her before she even sees the firebolt shoot past her into the bushes, setting them ablaze immediately.

She sends a quick look around the camp, making sure none of the attackers have made their way into their little circle around the fire. As she watches, Nott darts over to Caleb, leaving a gap in their lines and Molly’s back wide open, who is slashing into a masked man carrying a small crossbow even as he catches a crossbow bolt right underneath his shoulder blade.

Beau curses at the same time that Molly does. She takes off running, using the momentum to carry her over the flames instead of around the firepit, but she’s too slow — by the time she’s flanking Molly, another bolt has embedded itself right next to the other. In the split second that she takes to shift her feet to a stable stance, she hears him give a low gurgling sound as he collapses to the forest floor.

She curses to herself, heart lurching in her chest despite herself. “ _Jester!_ ”, she shouts at the top of her lungs, then she refocuses and attacks. When her fists sink into the soft flesh at the bandit’s throat, she silently and grimly delights in how similar the elicited sound is to the one Molly made just seconds ago. _Got you back, fucker._  

Grunting, the man drops the crossbow and manages to unsheath a shortsword from his hip. Even as she draws back, he lashes out against her, catching her forearm. She gives an involuntary shout, grabs him, pulls him down, and knees him in the ribs, feeling a sickening _crunch_ at the impact. The man gives a choked-off, chortling yelp, and Beau’s grip is the only thing holding him up as she hauls back and smashes her fist into his nose, shoving the bone decisively upwards. The fact that she’s using her bad arm doesn’t register until the pain is already shooting up all the way into her shoulder.

His eyes roll backwards, and she lets him slump to the ground, gripping her injured arm with the healthy one. Her vision is swimming and she doubles over, cradling her arm as nausea courses through her body.

A flash of blue darts past her, and Molly gasps back to life a few feet off. Beau forces herself to straighten and turns just in time to see Caleb finish a series of gestures which paint the air with pale lines of blueish light. With a shout, he releases the spell off to the side, and a fiery gleam of energy explodes out from his hand. When Beau finally manages to blink the spots away that blot out her vision, he’s hasn’t moved; he’s just standing, hand outstretched, frozen in place with his features slack.

“I think we got ‘em all”, Fjord’s drawl sounds from the shadows. As he steps out from beneath the canopies, Beau notices he’s clutching at his hip and limping. She moves to support him, leading him towards Jester and Molly, who’s sitting up and shrugging off his coat to frown at the holes in the back.

“Someone check on Caleb”, Jester calls as she moves to Fjord, pulling his shirt up further than strictly necessary. “Oof, that’s… very nice…” — “‘scuse me?” — “Nothing.”

Beau turns up her palm to regard the long cut running across it down to her wrist and half-way up her forearm, instinctively reaching out with her other arm to steady herself against a tree as her vision swims with the movement. “Jes, once you’re done over there, if you have a sec…”

Jester is bounding over to her before she can finish the sentence, her ice-cold fingers carefully prodding at the skin around the cut. “Oh… I should- why didn’t you _say_ anything, Beau, this is not good at _all_! I don’t…” With a huff, Jester scrunches her eyebrows together in an attempt to concentrate. Beau tenses slightly in anticipation, but the familiar rush of healing magic doesn’t come.

Jester gives a frustrated grunt, and Beau fights down a bout of nausea as she attempts to push the edges of the wound together. “I don’t have any spells left, I put them all on Fjord and Molly and Nott before! So I can’t heal you until the morning, but I don’t want to just _leave_ this, I don’t know…”

“I can stitch her up if you think that’ll help any”, Molly calls from a few dozen feet away.

Beau tilts her head to look past Jester to where Molly is in the process of helping Caleb, still hollow-eyed and slack-faced, sit down and lean against a tree. “I’m right here, fucker”, she barks back. “No need for a pronoun game.” He blows her a kiss.

“I think that would be a really good idea, though”, Jester says, wrinkling her nose anxiously. “Beau, is that okay? I mean, it’s not ideal, but…”

“Don’t worry, ’s alright”, Beau murmurs, reaches up to ruffle Jester’s hair.

The tiefling grins and leans forward to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m gonna send Molly over. Go sit by the fire. Be brave. And hold up your arm so you don’t bleed out.”

Beau grins back, lowering herself onto the forest floor and folding her legs. Admittedly, her head feels shrouded in cotton, and in the glow of the fire, she has to admit that the gash along her lower arm doesn’t look too good; her dark skin is slick and streaked with red all the way to the elbow, a dull sheen to it as she holds it up. She frowns at it, poking at the edges. It doesn’t hurt too bad, so she finds herself absentmindedly jabbing at her forearm for a few seconds until Molly drops in front of her with an elegant flourish. 

“Two questions. First, are you boozed up yet, and if not, do you wanna be?” She looks up. Molly is clutching a few bandages and his sewing supplies in his left hand — Beau is a little too familiar with those for her tastes —and with the other hand he is holding out Nott’s flask with an inviting smile. She reaches out to grab it without a word and lifts it to her lips for several long swigs. 

“Don’t look so sullen, now.” Molly settles in comfortably and reaches out for her arm. “You’ve been here before.”

“Mmh.” Beau lowers the flask and wipes her mouth with her free hand. “I know. Just don’t like it much. I’d say how ‘bout you, but I don’t wanna know what you’re into.”

Molly gives a low chuckle in appreciation and gestures for the flask, which Beau hands over. She looks away and across the fire, watching as Caleb’s eyes flutter, his gaze focusing once more. Jester immediately welcomes him back with animated chatter while Nott shoves a healing potion into his hands.

Though she is expecting it, the burning sensation that blooms across her forearm without warning makes her flinch and hiss slightly. Molly tuts. “Suck it up, this is just the disinfectant.”

“Fuck you, Molly.”

“You too, dear.”

Beau grits her teeth as Molly draws the heated needle through her skin, keeping her eyes focused on the huddled group on the other side of the fire. Fjord is back on his bedroll, already dozing off again, eyes half-closed. Caleb is sitting cross-legged close to the fire, absent-mindedly drawing his hands through Frumpkin’s fur as the cat curls up on his lap. Nott crouches next to him, fusses over the cuts in his coat.

Beau focuses in on them, almost drifting away from her own body while Molly continues to work on her arm. Their movements around each other, whenever she observes them, are like clockwork, working around each other and with each other, a practised duo without even trying. It’s calming to watch, really, this easy companionship.

The tug of the needle through her skin makes her wince every five seconds or so. Despite her best efforts, she can’t completely distract herself from it, and at some point she finds herself clenching her eyes shut as she fights the creeping nausea building in her stomach.

About three-quarters through the process of sewing up the wound, Molly’s hand slips as he’s drawing the needle back out. Instinctually, Beau jerks her arm out of Molly’s grasp with enough force to smack him in the jaw. “Mother _fucker_!”

“Sorry, sorry…”

Beau glances down at her arm and doesn’t see any additional damage, but it doesn’t stop her from glowering at Molly fiercely. Her vision is swimming, slightly, or maybe she’s just swaying where she sits, she’s not sure. “I’m not a damn pincushion, man, what are you doing?”

“Didn’t make a sound when you almost got your arm sliced in half, but the stitching is what sends you into a hissy fit?” Molly smirks as she continues to glare. “Come on, hands out front, Lionett.”

 Beau freezes.

 

 _“Hands out front, Lionett.” Beau draws back, but there’s something that snatches out and grasps her wrist painfully tight before she can get away. The sharp_ whoosh _of a narrow object swinging through the air registers before the burning line across her palm does, and then the second, and the third._

 

When Beau’s vision clears, a long string of angry infernal is being rattled off in the immediate vicinity, and her perspective has shifted. A wave of nausea passes over her, because suddenly she is standing, her knees bent in a defensive position. Molly is still sitting on the floor, bent backwards, holding his hand against his lip and chin. He’s staring at her incredulously, and there is blood spilling from underneath his fingers. “What the _fuck_?!”, he says loudly.

Her eyes dart around almost of their own accord, to Caleb, staring with raised eyebrows, to Jester, hand over her mouth, to Nott, grinning delightedly. Her breath and her heartbeat are echoing in her ears. The memory burns in her throat like throwing up on an empty stomach, and the firelight must have flared for how much it encroaches on her vision, and now Molly is getting up and demanding “What the shit did you do that for?!”, too close to her.

The blood still missing from her body makes her head swim. When she tries to form words — though she doesn’t even know which ones she’s looking for — her lips move silently for several seconds before her vocal cords catch up with her.

“I— I’m—” _That won’t do_. Beau wills herself to grab her left forearm with her right hand, digs her fingers into the slick skin around the half-finished suture. The resulting pain sends another violent bolt of nausea through her body, and she half-falls half-lowers herself onto her knees to dry-heave into the moss.

Jester gives a surprised yelp, and just moments later, Beau feels her cool hands stroking over her hair, pulling back a few strands that have fallen into her face. The subtle weight of Jester’s arms on her shoulders is strangely soothing, her voice softly cooing in her ear even more so (though Beau pushes the thought from her mind as soon as it occurs).

She allows herself a few seconds, then rights herself, demonstratively wiping her mouth with her healthy arm and cradling the other to her stomach. _Composure._ Molly is looking at her strangely, his fingers resting against his bloody lip.

She schools her voice, her features, and says gruffly, “Pretty sure you hit bone there, dude.”

Jester tsk-s, still rubbing her hand in soothing circles over Beau’s back. “Not cool, Molly”, she scolds.

Molly stays silent for a second too long. “My bad”, he says finally, not taking his eyes off Beau for a second. “Still gonna let me finish the job?”

“Okay, but I’m gonna stay here now”, Jester announces, scowling at Molly. “Because, you know, like, I’m _the_ _cleric_ and you clearly need professional supervision. And also”, she pulls Beau back down to sit on the floor with her, and Beau lets it happen, “Frumpkin is sticking to Caleb so I can’t pet him, and…”

It takes less than two minutes to stitch up the remainder of the wound, and just around five to fix the broken thread from when Beau jumped to her feet. Despite her remarks, Jester doesn’t even attempt to interfere with what Molly is doing; she just chatters and idly plays with Beau’s good arm, moving it through the air and making whooshing noises.

It’s distracting if nothing else, and Beau could cry in gratitude.

What’s more, though — she’s not entirely sure of it, but Molly seems to be moving just a little slower, holding her arm just a little gentler, focusing on the stitching just a little more. He does accidentally stab her forearm just once more, and she winces as his eyes dart up to her face. For a few moments, neither of them moves; then Beau makes herself look up at him. She gives a very slight nod, which Molly answers with a twitch of the eyebrow. Then he hunches over her arm again.

Jester continues to talk about nothing as Molly finishes stitching up the wound, and even as he gives it another quick rinse with alcohol from Nott’s flask. The second he straightens, Beau snatches the flask from his grasp and puts it to her lips for several long swigs. She’s grabbing with her injured arm, weakly scrambling more than anything else, but Molly lets go. Beau is not quite sure how she feels about that.

As she looks around, she realises that Nott, Caleb, and Fjord have settled back into camp already, with both Fjord and Nott already snoring lightly. Jester gets up and stretches, yawning. “I’m gonna go to sleep, too, I really need my spells back”, she says apologetically. “Can you guys take a watch? And later you wake someone up?” 

Beau nods, and Molly ushers Jester off to bed while she just remains sitting on the floor, legs crossed. Listening to the tieflings bicker, she fixes her gaze onto a few pieces of charcoal that have scattered during the fight.

She breathes slowly, deliberately. Allows her heart rate, pulsing in her injured arm, to slow down.

Her palm, the one that wasn’t cut, is burning nearly as bad as the other one. 

Beau flinches slightly when Molly drops down next to her with a sigh, but she’s calmed down enough that it doesn’t spike her adrenaline again. For almost a full minute, Molly is silent as he looks around the camp.

Before he speaks, Beau hears him draw a deep breath, and she braces herself. “You looked pretty spaced out back there”, he says, conversationally.

She sniffs loudly. “Did I?” 

“Yeah.” Molly’s eyes aren’t on her, but on the glowing embers. “Kind of… kind of like our Mr Caleb over there. Y’know, when he remembers his shit?”

“Mh.” Beau refuses to move.

Silence, then Molly speaks again. “All I want to say is… if there’s a way for me to avoid getting punched in the face again, I’d like to do my damndest.”

She counts her breaths until she loses count, somewhere in the sixties. Molly shifts beside her, leaning towards the fire to warm his hands.

“Just. Don’t use my fuckin’ last name.” Beau can’t help but quickly look at Molly’s flame-lit profile, but he shows no reaction, at least not from what she can see. “I fuckin’ hate that.”

Molly shrugs lightly. “‘lright.”

“I’m… sorry-for-punching-you-in-the-face.” Beau stares down at her hands, twisting and turning them, palm-up to backhand. The phantom burn is fading underneath the rust-red blood, just ever so slowly. “Was a shitty move. Didn’t mean to.”

Molly chuckles, leaning back and looking at Beau for the first time since the others went to sleep. There’s no pity in his eyes, just gentle amusement and something Beau can’t quite pinpoint. “It’s not the first time you punched me in the face, unpleasant one, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Don’t worry your strange little head over it.”

She grunts in acknowledgement, the corners of her mouth twitching into a slight smile that she quickly suppresses.

“Why don’t you go to sleep, I can handle watch alone”, Molly suggests, grabbing his coat and slipping his arms back into it.

“Didn’t you go unconscious earlier?”

“Yeah, but Jester got me up and going pretty good again.” He shrugs. “I’m fine for tonight.”

Hesitating, Beau gets up. “Wake me up if you get tired.” But the truth is, now that Molly has mentioned sleep, she feels the fatigue in her bones, feels the bruises all over her body, and the forest floor looks like the best pillow in the world.

She sits down on her bedroll on the far side of the fire, leveling one last look at Molly across the flames. He sighs exaggeratedly. “Go to sleep, or I’ll tell the goblin you flicked Caleb in the head yesterday." 

She gives a low chuckle and lies down, pulling her blanket over herself. “Fuck you, Molly.”

“Yeah, fuck you too.”

Beau closes her eyes, letting the warmth seep into her as exhaustion begins to overtake her body. When she breathes in, the smell of wet earth fills her lungs. She breathes out. 

She falls asleep with her hands clutching bundles of grass, wet with morning dew and wonderfully cool.


End file.
